


the fiercest girl in the galaxy

by mildlyobsessive



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, No Plot/Plotless, Not Happy, gamora and Loki met after Loki fell, loki and gamora are the same change my mind, spoiler alert its loki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-22
Updated: 2019-01-22
Packaged: 2019-10-13 00:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17477690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mildlyobsessive/pseuds/mildlyobsessive
Summary: “Thank you,” she says, because she is young and afraid of him. She does not call him father, never has. She’s stumbled a few times. Once, when he brought her a new sword, tiny to fit her frame, rubies gleaming on the hilt. “Here,” he’d said. “A fitting weapon for a little warrior.” He’d smiled then, in the same way her mother used to smile at her, and she’d had to bite back the word. It felt like betrayal on her tongue, and she had to brush her teeth twice that night to get the taste out of her mouth.OrGamora’s childhood in non-chronological vignettes





	the fiercest girl in the galaxy

**Author's Note:**

> I forgot I wrote this but I found it in my notes an hour ago so here goes nothing

The Sanctuary II, what with its never-depleted cache of weaponry and its maze of deadly corridors, proved itself an ample playground for a handle of would-be assassins.

“ _Gamora_ ,” hisses Nebula, “if Father sees us out here there will be hell to pay. Let’s go.” Her arm, newly shining metal that travels up to her elbow, catches the glaring heat of the planet’s sun. 

“We have thirty minutes until training,” Proxima pipes in from her position perched on some barrel of supplies or another. “It’ll be fine.” She’s younger than the two of them, but by how much Gamora couldn’t say. Proxima is new, only around six months into her instruction, and Gamora does not make a habit of involving herself with the little ones. They snap much too quickly for her liking.

They’re all scrounging around in one the cargo holds, what Nebula likes to call ‘the galaxy’s saddest excuse for a family,’ Proxima, Korath, all of the younger ones. Ebony Maw, the kiss-ass, is inside somewhere, doubtlessly doting over Father, Gamora thinks. She’s not sure where Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian are, but she’s never been too fond of them. They’re brutes and little else. Proxima follows after them like a lost dog, but that’s just how Proxima is. Her childlike need for attention hasn’t been beaten out of her yet, but it will. It always is.

At this point, Gamora is not sure of how old she is. The years have blended together here, with little to mark their passing save for an ever-growing body count, and without her mother to remind her the date has slipped from her mind. It’s a trivial matter, of little use to her, but she wishes she knew just to know. Gamora imagines she’s twelve now, maybe thirteen, and remembers the bright celebrations her birthday garnered back home.

She wipes the thought from her mind. _Home_ and its cozy connotations, are nothing but a distraction. Weakness is not taken lightly here.

“ _Gamora,_ ” Nebula whines again, sharper this time. She hops off a stack of rations, and her weight shifts uncomfortably when she lands, compensating for the metallic edition to her limb. Gamora knows it’s been causing her pain, ever since their last battle. The night Father had taken her arm, Gamora cried herself to sleep with guilt, fist stuffed in her mouth to stifle the sound. 

It’s this that makes her relent and climb down, sighing. “Coming,” she snaps, “although I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry to train.”

Nebula shoots her a look. “Not all of us are natural born killers, apparently.” It’s a joke, but not quite. Nebula is extremely good at what she does. It just so happens that Gamora is better.

Gamora rolls her eyes.

. . .

“She’s a _child_.”

“She’s hideous is what she is,” Nebula quips, staring at the girl’s blue hair and curving horns. “I have no idea what rock Father pulled her off of, but I’m rather glad it’s half destroyed.”

“Show some compassion, sister.”

“When has compassion ever been my strong suit? Or _yours_ , for that matter? You’re getting soft, Gamora.”

“Maybe you’ll win a fight once in a while, then.”

Nebula narrows her eyes, which Gamora remembers as strikingly blue. In a years’ time, her father will have them gouged out and replaced with soulless black orbs. “Fuck off,” she snorts, but there’s no anger in it. “And besides, what kind of pretentious name is _Proxima Midnight_ anyway? She sounds like a character out of a Xandarian drama.”

. . . 

There’s a boy in the grand hall. Well, not a boy, exactly, but something hovering in that hazy area being grown and growing. Gamora leans against the wall at the far end of the room, quiet, and watches.

He’s tall, over six feet, with long black hair that lands just above his shoulders. His skin is unhealthily pallid, and she can make out the dark circles under his eyes even from such a distance.

The boy kneels before her father’s throne, and Gamora can tell by the way he flinches at the slightest of the Titan’s movements that he’s no stranger to what he’s capable of. 

She wonders, briefly, if he’s a new addition, a new brother to add to her mismatched collection. But no, he’s too old, too hard to reprogram and beat into submission. Besides, it’s been close to a decade since her father adopted anyone anyway. He’s long since abandoned his planet-by-planet system of slaughter in favor of pursuing a more efficient model. 

Thanos notices her silent presence, as she knew he would. “Daughter,” he beckons. “Come.” 

She approaches him, acutely aware of the way the boy seems to shudder involuntarily at each one of her echoing footfalls. She makes an effort to walk more quietly.

“This is Gamora,” her father tells the boy. “My daughter and heir. The fiercest woman in the Galaxy.”

“Daughter?” the boy remarks. “Well, the resemblance _is_ uncanny.” His voice rasps, but Gamora can hear the charming lilt in it all the same. 

Thanos simply chuckles, an act of benevolence that surprises even Gamora. “Our skin tones might vary, but I assure you our philosophies remain identical.” 

_They never have_ , Gamora wants to scream. _You’re a madman, and nothing more_. She smiles instead, grimly. “Why is he here?” Controlled, calculated, dispassionate. 

“The Princeling desires to conquer Terra. He requires support,” the Titan explains. Gamora’s attention peaks at the honorific. A prince?

“And in return?” she questions, ever the dutiful child, on the outside, at least. “What do we have to gain from that ambition?”

“Precisely what I was wondering, Daughter. Enlighten us, Odinson.”

_An Asgardian, then. Interesting._

“I’m not-“ the boy stutters, before apparently deciding that silence was a preferable alternative to protest. “I-of course, my Lord. Anything you require in exchange for your services, I am more than happy to provide. Name your price, and I will pay it.”

Thanos grins. _Foolish boy,_ Gamora thinks, _you just gave yourself a debt that can never be repaid_.

“There is a cube on Terra,” her father tells the kneeling young man, “called the Tessaract. It is of particular interest to me. Obtaining it could repay me for providing you with the forces you need to accomplish such a scheme.”

The boy blinks, although in shock or relief Gamora was unable to tell. “Of-of course. Gladly, my Lord. Point me in its direction and I’ll bring it to you.”

Her father held up a hand. “Patience,” he cautioned. “Rushing into something so large is how you’ll get yourself killed. And we wouldn’t want that, considering you now owe me a great deal.”

The Asgardian prince falls silent, and Gamora shifts her weight from foot to foot.

“You’re dismissed,” the Titan tells the boy with a careless wave of his hand. “I have much to work out. My sons can escort you to your chambers in the meantime.” He stomps, once, and Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian promptly enter, flanking the son of Odin on either side. Corvus shoots Gamora a pointed look, as if to ask her what exactly she was planning to get herself into.

She gives a minuscule shrug that would have been undetectable to most anyone else. In this home, however, filled with danger and silence, her and her siblings have mastered the art of hushed communication. 

“What do you think of him?” her father asks when the three have exited the hall. 

“He’s young,” Gamora says truthfully. “And foolish. Too ambitious for his own good.”

“I agree,” Thanos says with a smile, and Gamora realizes the mistake she’s made too late. Any weakness here is a fatal flaw in and of itself. If the boy is to be useful, such a defect-

“I think, with a little time, we could curb that youthful hubris, don’t you?”

-yeah. That.

She swallows down bile, stares at the doorway from which the boy had exited. “Yes, Father,” she says, and her mouth tastes of blood.

. . . 

She finds his room, that night, when everyone else is asleep. Well, cell might be a more apt description of the Asgardian’s accommodations, what with the door being locked from the outside and all that. It’s a tiny place, only a bed and set of drawers with a connected bathroom. It’s in the damp part of the ship, and even through the peephole Gamora can sense the humidity, see the mold in the corners of the ceiling.

It’s downright hospitable, compared to what they get when they don’t obey. 

She doesn’t bother to knock, as the prince couldn’t open the door if he wanted to. She just slides the key in the lock and turns. She snuck it, earlier, from Cull. He may have noticed, but he didn’t say anything, and for that Gamora’s grateful. 

The boy is sitting on his bed, knees pulled up to his chest, greasy hair falling over his face. “What?” He asks sullenly, without looking up.

“Who are you?” Gamora inquires instead of answering. To be honest, she doesn’t know why she’s here. To warn him, maybe. To tell him he’s a fool. 

He looks up, tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear. His hands are still shaking, Gamora notes. “I am Loki, rightful King of Asgard,” he leers, managing to assemble some air of gravitas. “Lafeuyson.”

“Lafeuyson?” A Jotun, then, _and_ an Asgardian. It’s been near a decade since Gamora had heard anything of the Frost Giant race. The Asgardians, on the other hand, she knows by reputation. Fearsome warriors with millennia-long lifespans. Threats. It’s because of this her father had never attempted to wipe them out, although she knows he’d pondered it. Too risky, all things considered. “My Father called you-“

“-Odinson, yes” Loki says in an unmistakable Asgardian accent, lifting and falling, doused with charm and double meanings. “I believed myself to be, for a few centuries.”

“He also said you’re a prince.”

“ _Was_ a prince, more like. The youngest of the House of Odin.”

“Is your brother Thor of Asgard, then?”

“You know of him?”

“I’m not sure there’s anyone in the Galaxy that doesn’t,” she sighs, moving to close the door behind her. Gamora leans against the wall, arms crossed. “He’s a bit of a legend. Bit of a heartthrob as well, or so I’m told.”

Loki laughs, but it’s humorless. His hand is still shaking. “Of course he is. I don’t know why I would have expected otherwise.”

“Bit self-pitying, aren’t you, your Highness?” She’s trying to be funny, but the words come out cruel. After so long in this place, she’s forgotten how to kid. She was funny, once, she thinks. Or at least she can remember her mother laughing at her jokes. Maybe that meant nothing. Maybe that’s just what mothers do. It’s not like Gamora would know either way. 

“You may be right, Princess,” he mutters, again with that same sullen smirk. 

She steps closer to the bed. “I’m no princess.”

Loki looks up and grins. “Aren’t you, though? Daughter and heir of the Mad Titan?”

She’s on him before she really knows what she’s doing, bejeweled knife at his throat. Her father gave it to her, the day he slaughtered her people. She doesn’t know why she keeps it, really, but it’s the only thing she has left of that memory. Of her past life. Loki leans back on the bed to escape the threat of the blade, and, finding he can’t wiggle away, pushes himself up on his elbows to meet it. He chuckles again, and Gamora thinks he means for it to be threatening, an assurance that he’s in control. He’s a scared little boy, and she knows it. She’s not too sure Loki does though.

“The only thing I am heir to,” she whispers, lips brushing his ear. “is destruction. Genocide. I’m just as much of a prisoner here as you are, boy.”

“Am I imprisoned? I hadn’t noticed.”

“You’re a fool if you think he’ll let you walk out for here with an army, unscathed.” Gamora leans back, sheaths her weapon. “He’ll break you first. Tear you apart piece by piece and put you back together in any way he sees fit.”

Loki blinks, but says “I’ll do what has to be done.”

“Cut the bullshit. You’re in over your head, Asgardian.”

Instead of answering, the prince pushes himself to his feet. He wobbles, as if he might fall, but Gamora knows pride well enough to suspect that he wouldn’t appreciate any help. “What are you?” He asks impersonally, in what couldn’t be a clearer attempt to change the subject. “Not Kree. Clearly not Titan, considering, well,” he gestures, encompassing their surroundings. “What, then? Astran? Skrull?”

“Zehoberei.”

He’s knocked out of his self-important brooding with that. “Zehoberei? Weren’t they wiped out?”

She swallows. “Half of us were.” It’s weird, including herself with her race. As if she hadn’t alienated herself from her people long ago. “By Thanos.”

He blinks twice, stares at her. “He took you.” 

It’s not a question, but she nods anyway. “I fought when they separated me from my mother. He found my aggression . . . _admirable_.”

“And your mother?”

“Dead.” She spits the word out. “Satisfied with my sob story now, Odinson? Are you glad to know that I’m just a souvenir of genocide?”

He looks at her, not with sympathy but with something akin to understanding. “Odin stole me from Jotunheim,” he says after a moment. “My birth father left me to die there. I thought I was Asgardian. They taught me, growing up-“ he paused, laughed a bit in that not-so-humorous way of his. “They taught me Frost Giants were animals. Brutes fit for slaughter alone.”

“When did you find out?”

He laughs yet again. “About a week ago, actually. When my skin started to turn blue I realized something was amiss. My father- _Odin_ , he told me I was fit to be a king. But I’m just a bauble he collected during one of his great conquests. A symbol of his victory. I was never intended to be anything more than a pet.” He spat the words, looking up at her. “I tried to prove myself. My father rejected my efforts. And here I am.” He shrugs. “Now you know my sob story as well, Gamora of Zen-Whoberi. I suppose that makes us even.”

“I suppose so.” 

He looks defensive, vulnerable, as he lowers himself back onto his bed. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I should like to get some rest. I have an important day ahead of me.”

“He’ll kill you,” she blurts out, because he’s a child. A petulant boy, trying to prove himself, and he doesn’t deserve this. “Or at the very least make you wish you were dead. He’ll use you and then throw you away. It’s what he does.”

“What would you have me do?” he sneers.

“Leave. Tonight. I’ll make it look like you escaped. Go home, Odinson.”

He snorts, moderately hysterical and looks up at her with glassy eyes. “Don’t you see?” he asks. “I have no home to go back to.”

. . . 

Gamora has been on the Titan’s ship for five months when Thanos summons her to the great hall. She’s mostly past the kicking and screaming phase at this point, her efforts exhausted and futile. The memory of her mother, despite her best efforts, has began to fade, blurring with time like a cataract. She holds on to glimpses: her arms around her, comforting, her voice, the warmth in her gaze. 

The throne room is desolate and dark. Gamora hates it there, and Thanos knows she does. Her first week here, he’d placed her on his seat, grinning a little. “If you become what I think you’re capable of being, little one,” he said, almost proudly. “You’ll sit here one day. You’ll do what has to be done.”

“No,” she spat, insolent and youthful. She missed her mother. She missed her mother and she wanted to go home. 

Now, she has grown accustomed to, if not comfortable with, the room. Ebony Maw, her older brother and, in Gamora’s opinion, absolute jerk, holds the door open for her with a sneer. Thanos sits on his throne. “Come, Gamora,” he beckons. 

There’s a little girl next to him, Gamora notes with surprise. Blue skinned, with wide eyes. She’s younger than Gamora, but not by much. “Who is she?” Gamora asks.

“Her name is Nebula,” the Titan explains matter-of-factly. “She is to be your sister.”

Her eyes widen, staring at the child. Against her better judgement, something like joy begins to curl in her chest. Five months. Five months alone in this place with no one to speak to. A friend would be a gift, a blessing, a peace offering. 

_No,_ a wiser part of her says. _She’s not your family. You had one, remember? And he took it from you._

“Where did she come from?” she asks instead. She is young, after all, six or seven. Naturally curious.

“A place far from here,” the Titan says. “I saved her, as I did you.”

Gamora’s blood runs cold. So he’s done it again, taken a child from their home and lit the remnants aflame. Called it mercy. 

“Thank you,” she says, because she is young and afraid of him. She does not call him father, never has. She’s stumbled a few times. Once, when he brought her a new sword, tiny to fit her frame, rubies gleaming on the hilt. “Here,” he’d said. “A fitting weapon for a little warrior.” He’d smiled then, in the same way her mother used to smile at her, and she’d had to bite back the word. It felt like betrayal on her tongue, and she had to brush her teeth twice that night to get the taste out of her mouth.

“You’re welcome, little one,” he says, and nudges the blue girl towards her. “Show her around, please. Ebony Maw will be nearby if you need anything.”

That night, she’s kneeling on her bed in the dormitory, braiding her hair, when Nebula asks, “where are my parents?”

Nebula’s tucked under the covers of her new bed, tiny fingers playing with the frayed end of her quilt. The wall around her bed is bare, as is the set of drawers next to it. Gamora is suddenly hyper-aware of the drawings covering every inch of her wall-space. Her mother. A ruby-hilted sword. Zen-Whoberi, with smiling green faces looping the planet like a halo. It all seems very childish, almost cruel, in the face of a girl who has just lost her family. “Gone,” Gamora says because she does not know what else to say.

“Gone where?”

“I don’t know. The same place my mother is, I suppose.”

“Is it-“ Nebula pushes herself up, back resting against the headboard of the cot. “Is it a happy place?”

Gamora ties off the end of her braid and throws it over her shoulder. She leans over and rifles through one of her drawers, pulling out a loose sheet of paper. 

“I hope so,” she says, handing it to Nebula. It’s a drawing of her mother, smiling, in front of a waterfall. The cerulean water falls off of a sheer cliff, bubbling in a pool around her mother’s feet. There are trees around her, yellow trunks with pink leaves. “This is where I think she is. Your parents are probably there now, too.”

“Oh,” says Nebula, staring intently at the drawing. “Can we go there, too?”

Gamora takes the drawing out of Nebula’s blue fingers, gently, and places it back in her drawer with all the quiet precision of a surgeon. “We will one day,” she says confidently, though she’s not really sure at all. “But not right now. Until then I’m your sister. I’ll take care of you.”

. . .

Ebony Maw waves his hand and sends Gamora flying into a wall, as if he were shooing away a fly. She hits the cement hard, feels her arms scrape against the rough surface, her breath knocked out of her. It was harder than it had to be, she knows. Maw did it out of spite, not necessity. 

She twirls the blade in her hand and rolls towards him, swiping a leg out to send him sprawling onto the ground. A well-placed boot on his chest and a knife at his throat later and Gamora has him pinned, looking particularly pissed off. She grins.

It’s too soon for relaxation. Another second and Maw has her careening up into the ceiling and back down again. She hits the ground, hard, and is overwhelmed by a sudden excruciating pain in her chest. A broken rib, probably. Nothing she hasn’t endured before, but it makes it hard to breath, what with the tides of pain lapping at the edges of her consciousness. Proxima, who always finds some excuse or another to sit in on training, winces from her place near the door.

 _Damn magic users_ , she thinks bitterly, spitting blood. “That’s cheating,” she sneers out loud, trying not to let the pain register on her face. She doesn’t move as Maw gets closer, a self-confident smirk on his fish-like face. He nudges Gamora with his toe impersonally, and chuckles a little when the resulting tidal wave of pain results in a wince. 

“Your enemies will use every available method against you, little sister.” He speaks slowly, as if he’s explaining something to her. Gamora can feel rage rising up in her chest, weaving through the agony. _Fiercest woman in the Galaxy_ she reminds herself, and pretends that the words aren’t in her father’s voice. 

“Not so little anymore, brother.” 

He scoffs. “Hardly twenty and already so arrogant? It doesn’t suit you.”

She takes a moment to breath, watching Maw’s condescending face above her. Doesn’t bother to even reach for her blade when she places a well-aimed kick right into his crotch. He falls, gasping, and hey, she may have used more force than necessary, but it’s not like he was holding back. 

She digs the heel of her boot into his right hand, the one he uses to cast his little spells. Grinding her foot into his palm further, she smiles at him, firmly passive-aggressive. “What’s the use of magic if you’re using it to compensate for weakness?” she asks with a smirk. Gamora steps off of his hand and wipes her shoe disdainfully against the ground, like the one time she’d accidentally stepped in that pool of blood on Xandar. “We’re done here.”

She’s halfway across the room (purposefully _not_ limping, thank you) when she hears Ebony Maw start to laugh. It’s a low, cruel noise, devoid of any mirth, and she can’t keep herself from turning around. 

“What’s so funny?” 

She knows, deep down, that this is what he wants. Some semblance of control over her, a sense of being the one calling the shots. She’s sacrificing her position of power for a petty satisfaction, but she can’t make herself care.

Maw stares at her, the corner of his lip still curling upwards in an unmistakable sneer. She despises him, in this moment, even more than usual.

“You are impatient,” he tells her. “A little warrior too used to winning. Out there,” he gestures vaguely in a way that’s supposed to encompass the whole of the universe. “Where the enemies of our father are numerous, that will be your downfall.”

Gamora makes a concerted effort to maintain direct eye contact. “Thank you for the advice, brother, but I seem to be doing just fine on my own.” 

“You’re entitled. Spoiled. Father has treated you like his own flesh and blood, and look where it has gotten you.”

“Not like you to question him, Maw.”

“I _worry_ for him,” snaps the magician, folding his hands behind his back. “I worry for his legacy. You’re not a true believer, Gamora. Maybe he thinks too fondly of you to see it, but I don’t.”

“I no idea what you’re talking about.” To assent, to give him any hint of him being right, would be suicide. Thanos doesn’t take kindly to disloyalty. She would be ripped apart like Nebula, like that boy a few years back, glued back together like a rag doll until she would beg for death. It’s happened before, and she doubts her status as the Titan’s favorite child would save her from it. That unendurable torture would make the pain in her chest feel like a paper cut.

“You are not fit to be his heir,” Maw says as opposed to calling her bluff. “He deserves someone who has stood by his side for decades. Someone who has built their entire life around his gospel-“

“Someone like you?”

He blinks at her, takes a step forward. “I say this out of concern for our father,” Maw growls. “Not out of petty ambition.”

“Is that so?” Gamora is in front of him in a second, so close she can feel his breath hit her face. Her chest throbs, but she ignores it. “I think you’re jealous. You’ve always been, ever since I got here, ever since Father made it clear that he preferred me over you. You’d been here a decade when I arrived, Maw, and still, _still-_ within six months he was planning on leaving his mission to me.”

She takes a calm stride back and surveys him as one might a slug. “He’s never loved you,” she whispers. “Despite your loyalty, despite all your hard work, you’ve never been more than a servant to him.”

She leaves before he can say anything else, slamming the door shut behind her and hunting down some booze for the pain in her chest. 

. . .

Loki ignores her warnings. For weeks, she hears him scream from the cells where she is not permitted to go. “Good progress, today,” her father will say some evenings, emerging from the area sweaty and grinning. “We’ll cure him yet.” He’ll chuckle, patting Gamora on the shoulder affectionately.

It takes copious amounts of begging to convince Cull Obsidian to loan her the keys to the cell. A week of dessert gone, Gamora makes her way to Loki’s quarters. 

He looks awful. That’s pretty much the first thing she registers when she enters the tiny room. 

He’s in a ball on the bed, knees pulled up to his chest and try and compensate for his shallow breathing. The bags under his eyes, which had already been rather pronounced, are near-blue. There’s blood on the sheets, splattered haphazardly, recklessly, painfully. 

And the _scars_ across his chest, ringing his back and neck and everything in between. _There’s too many of them_ Gamora thinks, _and they’re far too healed over_. Her father has ways of facilitating healing, making the wounds heal over messy and quick so he can reopen them more viciously next time. 

Loki looks like a patchwork doll she had once had back on Zen-Whoberi, something her mother pieced together from scraps of mismatched fabric. It turns her stomach.

She’d _told him_ , dammit. She’d told him to run. She has to swallow back an “I told you so,” as she closes the door quietly behind her, clears her throat to alert him of her presence.

He doesn’t move much, just lifts his head enough to make her out through lidded eyes. The blood vessels in his eyes are popped, leaking red. “Come to gloat?” he croaks, and it’s obvious his voice hasn’t been used for much recently, save screaming. “You were right.”

“About which part?”

“I-I do,” he coughs a little, spitting blood carelessly over the side of the bed. “Wish I was dead. I do.”

Gamora doesn’t know what to say to that, so she moves over to his cot and sits next to him. “Here,” she says, handing him a canteen of water she’d brought with her. “Drink.”

He takes it from her hand warily, and she notices with a little surge of horror that he’s missing three of his fingernails. The water splashes across his chin as he chugs, and she doesn’t think losing his carefully-crafted composure suits him. 

“Kill me,” he says simply when he’s finished, wiping a bloodied hand across his face. It’s so calm that Gamora doesn’t register what he’s really asking.

“What?”

“You’re an assassin. Kill me.” 

She stares at him, a hint of desperation in his eyes, hair ragged and unkempt and greasy. She doesn’t say anything.

“I don’t say this often,” he says with his characteristically charming smile. Gamora can see the effort in his face to arrange it. “But _please_.”

“I can’t.” It’s true. Cull knows that she has the keys, and there’s nothing in this room that could make it look like a mistake or a suicide. She’d be sentencing not only herself, but Cull as well, to the same fate as Loki.

Something snaps internally in the boy, like someone in his brain hit a light-switch. His eyes go dark in what Gamora recognizes as hopelessness. He has no other options left. “Back home,” he says softly, by which Gamora assumes he means Asgard, “I made some . . . mistakes, to put it generously. I wanted to show my father-show _Odin_ that I was capable.” He stretches a bit, winces. “My brother stopped me from destroying Jotunheim altogether. But we both ended up dangling over the edge of the Bifrost. He held on. I-I didn’t.”

“You threw yourself off?”

“I didn’t _throw _anything. I let go. It was far more passive than what you’re likely imagining.”__

__“Oh.” She doesn’t know what else to say._ _

__“I thought that was it. It was over, I was done, but then I woke up here, and I thought _what if this is my opportunity to prove myself?_ ” Loki starts to laugh, hysterical, choking a bit. “I was foolish. I should have died back on that bridge and saved myself a lot of pain.”_ _

___I wish you had, too_ , Gamora almost says, but stops herself. “I’m sorry.”_ _

__“Not sorry enough to end this.”_ _

__“I won’t sacrifice both me and my brother for you, Odinson. I’m sorry, but I can’t do what you ask.”_ _

__He waves a hand carelessly. “Family is important, or so I hear.”_ _

__She starts to leave, unsure of what else to say to him. Her fingers close around the door handle and still. Turning back toward him, she says, “When you get out of here, don’t go to Terra. Don’t bring him the Tesseract. Go back to your brother, your father.”_ _

__“I’m afraid I’ve burned that bridge rather thoroughly, Gamora.”_ _

__“You can still-“_ _

__“ _Go_ ” he snaps, rolling back onto his side. “Unless you’re going to help me, leave.”_ _

__Gamora locks the door behind her. She never sees him again._ _


End file.
